School renovation project gets honor

Friday

Aug 10, 2012 at 12:01 AMAug 10, 2012 at 9:15 AM

The City of Bastrop received the Community Achievement Award from the Louisiana Municipal Association (LMA) Aug. 6, for Outstanding Community Improvement in Community Development for the Historic Bastrop High Housing Project for municipalities with populations of 10,001-25,000.

Vicki Adams

The City of Bastrop received the Community Achievement Award from the Louisiana Municipal Association (LMA) Aug. 6, for Outstanding Community Improvement in Community Development for the Historic Bastrop High Housing Project for municipalities with populations of 10,001-25,000.

The award was given to the mayor and aldermen during the LMA’s 75th Annual Banquet at the Lake Charles Civic Center.

The LMA’s annual awards program recognizes municipalities for outstanding achievement in basic services, community development and economic development.

During Thursday night’s Bastrop Mayor and Board of Alderman meeting, Mayor Betty Alford-Olive thanked the City of Bastrop Development Incorporated organization for being the driving force behind the completion of the Historic Bastrop High Housing Project.

Mark Rainwater, on the board of directors for the project, said he remembers when the project almost failed.

“There had been a lot of times in the last 10 or 12 years when the project was all but dead,” he said. “I can remember, probably about two and a half years ago, Marc Vereen, Vicki Carpenter and myself met in [the City Hall] conference room on a conference call with [developer] Tom Crumley.”

Then Rainwater and other board members informed Crumley that they refused to give up.

“Tom told us that it was over, that he had fought as long and as hard as he intended to fight,” he said. “Marc and Vicki and myself talked him out of it.”

Alford-Olive said she was “pleased to submit” the entry of the housing project for consideration of the award.

She thanked Crumley, Bastrop Public Works, Bastrop Main Street and others.

“Everyone who played a part in making this vision a reality is deserving of recognition,” she said. “I want to simply say thank you to all of the hard-working people who believe in the City of Bastrop.”